Letter: Wrong recipe

There is something lowly if not fundamentally wrong about soliciting funds from the public to fund a private, for-profit enterprise. Yet this is exactly what is happening in Shelburne Falls around the start-up of a Mexican restaurant on Deerfield Avenue.

My understanding is that one goes to a bank for a loan or looks for a partner or partners in such ventures. The public usually contributes money to causes having to do with emergency situations such as devastating home fires or in cases of serious illness when shelter and life and death are involved. This we call charity and it comes from people’s hearts — from one’s ability to empathize with another human being’s suffering and hardship.

To tug on the heartstrings of the public for a for-profit business is arrogant and presumptuous. It’s essentially an act of indecency. At best it speaks of entitlement.